Just got done doing my first AG yesterday, went reasonably well, up until the batch sparge. I had 13.25 lbs of grain, mashed in with 16.5 qts at 171 degrees. The grain bed was measuring 156 degrees initially, so I stirred it around till it came into my target 154. This held perfectly for 60 mins, so I was quite pleased at this point. I planned on sparging with two 10qt batches, I divided beersmith's 19.88 sparge in half. According to Beersmith the temperature was suppose to be 182.3 to hit 168 degrees for sparge. Well I put my 10qts in at 183 degrees and the grain bed temperature only came up to 160 degrees. I quickly started heating the remaining 10qts to a boil and slowly started adding it in. Well I ended up adding all the remaining sparge water and only got the temperature up to 164-165 degrees. I stirred it and stirred it, checked the temperature in multiple spots. So I am pretty confident I wasn't just measuring a cold spot.
I was able to hit 70% efficiency so I'm somewhat satisfied with my first attempt, but there was definitely something screwy with that sparge temperature.
Is it because I split the water volume in half? Should the temperature been higher for that first sparge? Would I have been better off just leaving that first sparge at 160 degrees and trying to correct with the second sparge. Not sure if temperature is more critical, than getting the two sparges in??
That was really my only problem, fermenting nicely in the basement so I'm calling it a success. Just at a loss for the temperature issues on the sparge.
I was able to hit 70% efficiency so I'm somewhat satisfied with my first attempt, but there was definitely something screwy with that sparge temperature.
Is it because I split the water volume in half? Should the temperature been higher for that first sparge? Would I have been better off just leaving that first sparge at 160 degrees and trying to correct with the second sparge. Not sure if temperature is more critical, than getting the two sparges in??
That was really my only problem, fermenting nicely in the basement so I'm calling it a success. Just at a loss for the temperature issues on the sparge.